Stephanie Heath Nash is a classroom teacher with more than 20 years of experience teaching everything from kindergarten through eighth grade, with the majority of her time spent in grades K–2. In addition to her classroom experience, Stephanie also played a key role in the writing and development of the Kendall Hunt Religious Publishing Division’s revised Pathways2.0 curriculum for grades 1 and 2.

To say it has been “quite the year” would be an understatement.

From the COVID-19 pandemic to the movements for racial justice and the turmoil of the election, the country has dealt with issues of an unprecedented magnitude during the last year. The field of education has had its own challenges, most notably a sudden pivot to remote and virtual learning.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Divide and conquer.

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

Though these quotes may seem cliché, the sentiment underlying them couldn’t be more accurate— when we work together and pool our collective resources, we stand a much greater chance of reaching our goals and retaining what we learn along the way.

As students and teachers return to classrooms this fall, many are doing so in a hybrid environment, blending digital and in-person education to keep students and staff members safe in the world of COVID-19.

When you purchase a new electronic gadget these days, the instruction manual seems to fall into one of two categories: either it’s a book-length, meticulously detailed packet with dense language that sails over your head, or it’s one page of diagrams with little other information on assembly and operation. Either way, you, as the user, are left confused and frustrated, unsure how to even turn on your purchase, let alone use it to its fullest potential.

“It is entirely possible to study science in a sound way with critical thinking skills, looking at the facts and the way things work, without dismissing faith out of hand. Faith and science are not at odds when you objectively examine the evidence.”

—Sara, Heart and Soul Homeschooling blog

As we continue into the month of August, in any other year, teachers would be knee-deep in curricular planning and classroom décor, excitedly preparing name tags and lesson plans for the start of another great school year.

But as we are all more than aware, this isn’t “any other year.”

Every year, Merriam-Webster Dictionary selects a “word of the year,” based on searches of its online dictionary as well as the general political and cultural climate of that year. Recent selections have included they as a singular nonbinary pronoun in 2019, justice in 2018, and feminism in 2017.

After a stressful spring and summer, students and teachers alike are in search of something to smile about as they return to school this fall. And from an educator’s perspective, what’s more smile-inducing than a curriculum that a student actually wants to learn?

Here are four factors that make students want to learn … and the ways in which the Kendall Hunt RPD’s customized curriculum ByDesign Science delivers in each category!

It’s no secret that we here at the Kendall Hunt Religious Publishing Department (RPD) love Pathways2.0, our customized, faith-based reading and language arts program for grades 1–8. And we’re not the only ones!

Educators nationwide love our new curriculum as much as we do. We’ve compiled five key reasons why our users love Pathways2.0, and we bet you and your students will love it just as much as they did!

One of the most popular aspects of the Kendall Hunt Religious Publishing Division (RPD)’s ByDesign Science curriculum for grades 1–8 is the fact that it spans so many grades, providing schools and families with consistency as the student progresses through the curriculum.

The end of the 2020 school year was a bumpy road as COVID-19 forced us to transition abruptly to at-home education. No one, from students to teachers to parents, emerged from the changes unscathed.

Except, that is, for those students and parents who were at home already.

The Kendall Hunt Religious Publishing Division (RPD) is proud of our years of experience in crafting customized curricular materials tailored for your specific educational situation. Custom publishing is the answer when standard curricula just don’t fit the needs and mission of your traditional or nontraditional classroom, and we have the resources and expertise to create a curriculum as specific and detailed as your educational setting demands.

Educators nationwide have had their lives turned upside down by COVID-19. Classrooms have emptied, schools have shuttered, and lessons have moved online. We here at the Kendall Hunt Religious Publishing Division (RPD) salute you for the amazing work you have done and are doing to keep your students learning under such challenging circumstances.

During the shift to online education, it’s easy to assume that reading and language arts teachers have it easier than some of their colleagues because it’s easy to teach reading at home, right? After all, many schools already do read-at-home programs, and students can just pick up a book and read. Problem solved!

Well … maybe not exactly.

Eighteen years ago, when Larry Blackmer became vice president of the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) North American Division (NAD) Office of Education, he immediately realized the importance of a Christian-based science curriculum.

“I could not in good conscience put an evolutionary, anti-Christian textbook on an Adventist kitchen table when the students took their books home,” Blackmer said.

I was once enrolled in a course called Professional Writing, where we discussed not only workplace communication but also basic principles of graphic design. My professor’s catchphrase that semester was “naming gives you power.” If we were able to articulate why we made the design choices we made—and articulate them using authentic design terminology—our work would be stronger.

In the school library, students may wander the shelves aimlessly, pulling books at random, only to return them unread or unfinished because the difficulty, the subject matter, or the writing style simply wasn’t a good match. Not every book is for everyone, but it’s hard to know what you’ll like at first glance … especially if you don’t want to judge the book by its cover (which you shouldn’t, of course).

Have you heard of the Reggio Emilia approach to education?

Do you group students by ability level, placing the high achievers with their dedicated peers? Or do you strategically split up those high achievers, hoping their motivation will inspire the less enthusiastic learners?

The first option is homogeneous grouping, also known somewhat infamously as ability grouping. Lately, it’s caught a lot of flak from educators who say that it can reinforce negative student self-conceptions and doesn’t always improve the quality of education.

My first taste of literature circles came in sixth grade, when our teacher put a list of five books on the board. The book we chose, she said, would form the group with whom we would share and discuss that text for the next few weeks.

Kendall Hunt PreK–12 Religious Publishing is excited to have collaborated with the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) North American Division (NAD) Office of Education on a brand-new Christian-based high school biology curriculum, ByDesign Biology! The new program is being rolled out and implemented in classrooms for the fall of 2020.  Here are just a few of the exciting features of our innovative, customized curriculum, with input from our program writers and contributors at the NAD!

The tremendous power of a river is diminished when it is fragmented into little streams. However, when the streams are channeled together, it then can develop a deep flow. So it is with learning.

—Author and educator Ben Johnson

 “Tell me about your picture.”

 “What does your story say?”

“Busywork”: every student’s nightmare. The word conjures flashbacks of endless fill-in-the-blank packets, “educational” videos with surface-level question sheets, and insultingly easy problem sets.

In the digital era, the written word is being replaced with the typed. But even as physically writing messages becomes less common, the importance of handwriting is still relevant … for multiple reasons.

Whether you’re a homeschool parent or an administrator of a private or religious school, it can be a challenge to find a faith-based curriculum that addresses your students’ academic needs while also nurturing their spiritual growth. We at Kendall Hunt Religious Publishing Division (RPD) offer faith-based curricula, developed in connection with Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) educators, that do exactly that.

Project-based learning (PBL) is a research-backed educational method that puts students in the driver’s seat of their learning. By focusing on student choice, open-ended inquiry, and learning through projects and problem solving, PBL builds creativity and critical thinking skills.

The Pathways 2.0 reading and language arts program is built around award-winning, developmentally appropriate trade books that students love to read. These trade books include classics such as Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan and new bestsellers like Linda Sue Park’s A Long Walk to Water.

“How many pages do you want?”

“How long should our presentation be?”

“How many sources should we have?”

These questions may be common in your classroom, but it’s important to know that when your students ask them, it’s not always out of a desire to shirk extra work. Students aren’t necessarily asking to see how much they have to do, but merely to understand what’s expected of them so that they start off the project or paper on the right foot.

 “Across the country, kindergartners are being told what to do and how to do it, every single step along the way, all day long. They play less and study more than they did 20 years ago. This is what kindergarten has become, and it’s not a good thing.”

“When you’re in middle school …”

Several times a week, our fifth-grade teacher waxed poetic about the increased rigor that awaited us in sixth grade. We would have to turn in our homework the moment we walked into the classroom, he said, and if the bell rang before we did so, it wouldn’t be accepted. Retakes would not be offered. Homework assignments would be longer and more arduous. We needed to start preparing now, he exhorted us, passing out another review packet.

A slide in the cafeteria?

For one school, it’s all part of the culture of “surprise and delight.”

“We can’t reduce our kids to a Lexile level and hope to see them succeed. We have to do the hard work of building relationships and developing resilience and empathy in the classroom with as much attention as we dedicate to providing effective instruction, educating both the heart and the mind.”

—We Are Teachers

In an article for edutopia.org, Vicki Davis, a full-time teacher and information technology (IT) consultant, muses, “Sometimes I’m afraid our students think that because we have these big textbooks, everything must be in there.”

On the surface, this may sound like a foolish assumption. Everyone knows that not “everything” can fit into one textbook. Of course, there’s always more to learn. Everyone gets that. Right?

Project-based learning (PBL) is an innovative way of teaching that lets students become the directors of their learning. Along with inquiry science and other student-centered methods of teaching, PBL has become all the rage.

As we welcome in the 2020s, we here at the Kendall Hunt PreK–12 Religious Publishing Department (RPD) are reflecting on the 2010s! It’s been a busy decade for us—we launched three of our biggest customized, faith-based curricula during the last ten years: ByDesign Science, Kindergarten Stepping Stones, and Pathways2.0 Reading and Language Arts. Take a look at our decade in review!

With a fresh year before us, the Kendall Hunt PreK–12 Religious Publishing Department (RPD) took a moment to look back at the one we’re leaving behind! In 2019, we were proud to launch and implement Pathways2.0, a major revision to a customized reading and language arts program for grades 1–8 that was developed in collaboration with the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) North American Division (NAD) Office of Education.

Your students may be returning from winter break in the next few days or weeks, and chances are your searching for a way to corral short attention spans and get them back into the school mindset. If you want your students to take ownership of their work, good news: there are two simple ways teachers can move students beyond the “because my teacher made me” mind-set. All it takes is a little trust.

Method 1: Students can teach themselves

Winter break is a time for students and teachers to decompress, reunite with family, and enjoy unstructured free time. However, it’s also important to keep kids’ skills sharp over break … but who wants to be the teacher that assigns homework over the holidays?

Remember the traditional “three Rs” of academics? Although they are crucial for student success, we all know that there’s so much more to a good education than reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Makers create, tinker with old technology, and invent new things. It's do-it-yourself at its best. Maker teachers inspire their students to dream up their own inventions, experiment, fail and experiment again until they've made something personally meaningful. Maker education is a combination of hands-on learning and project-based learning.

—USC Rossier’s Guide to Maker Education

As the holiday season approaches, a spirit of charity is in the air. As we gather with family and friends and share the joy of the season, it’s important to teach the young learners in our lives the importance of counting our blessings.

Customized curriculum, such as Pathways 2.0 and ByDesign Science, emphasizes collaborative learning because of its proven positive impacts on the student experience. There are many benefits of collaborative learning, but students don’t always see it that way. So many students have expressed their distaste for group projects that there’s now an official term for the phenomenon: “grouphate,” or the negative feelings that people have toward working in groups.

All the way through elementary and middle school, I had weekly spelling tests. I still remember the pretests that came home on Monday afternoons on yellow paper, which my mom placed in a prominent place on the kitchen counter. Every day, she’d quiz my younger sister and me on our spelling words.

In the Pathways 2.0 program, the Writing Workshop process is divided into four components: mini-lesson, independent writing time, conferencing, and sharing. Generally, the mini-lesson and conferencing stages should each take a quarter of the time, and independent writing should take half of the time. Here are four important things to remember, one for each stage of the process.  

During the mini-lesson: practice active modeling

Inquiry science naturally lends itself to experiments and hands-on activities, which are excellent ways to engage your students and fire their natural curiosity. However, teachers must ensure that curiosity is the only thing being ignited. From chemicals to sharps to heat, the science lab can be a dangerous place if handled improperly. Students and teachers share the responsibility of maintaining a safe environment.

Our past two blogs in this three-part “Life in a Multigrade Classroom” series have discussed the logistics and the benefits of a multigrade environment. Today, our final post provides words of wisdom from our multigrade educators Luna and Whiting, as well as resources for administrators, teachers, and parents.

“Flexibility is a non-negotiable commodity”

In our three-part blog series about multigrade classrooms, we’ve looked at the logistics of how multigrade classrooms work. Today, we dive into four major benefits of the multigrade model.

Self-directed learning

In a multigrade setting, students are required to complete independent work without constant teacher prodding, meaning that multigrade classrooms encourage self-directed learning.

For those of us who spent our formative years in traditional, single-grade K–12 classrooms, the idea of a multigrade classroom may seem like a foreign concept.

Multiple grades? In the same room? How could that work?

Very well, as a matter of fact. Although they’re uncommon in U.S. school districts, multigrade classrooms have many academic, social, and spiritual benefits for students.

Although assessments might not be the most thrilling part of education, when implemented intentionally, they have great value for student learning.  According to educator Carol Campbell, “ongoing, visible, lifelong learning is the goal” of educational assessment, and assessments can be used before, during, and after a lesson to support and verify student learning.

The Kindergarten Stepping Stones curriculum is modeled on the belief that kindergarten children need “frequent changes of activities” but also “fairly predictable routines” and “occasional surprises.” Kindergarten teacher Melissa shares the same sentiment, noting that “[w]hile it’s important to keep things consistent, it’s important to switch up that consistency.”

At many Adventist schools science teachers focus on inquiry-based learning, lessons are developed around a customized 5-step instructional model. This model divides the learning process into five steps: engage, discover, explain, extend, and assess/reflect.

In the Broadway musical My Fair Lady, protagonist Eliza Doolittle exclaims: “Words, words, words—all I get is words! I get words all day!” Her comment describes the ideal atmosphere for an elementary school child: a print-rich environment. In such an environment, children interact with many forms of print in meaningful ways and are encouraged to read and write about what is important to them.

In the award-winning novel Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles, ten-year-old Comfort Snowberger is counseled by her great uncle Edisto to “Open your arms to life! Let it strut into your heart in all its messy glory!” The ever-practical Comfort responds, “I don’t like messes. I like my plans.”

This summer, parents with kids at home probably rediscovered the number of times per day their children can ask a variation of “why?” Most parents begin answering with the best intentions, but after the five hundredth “why,” even the most patient parent can perhaps be excused for exclaiming, “Because I said so!”

School can be an environment of “every person for him- or herself,” and not just on the elementary school playground. According to Vicki Zakrzewski of UC Berkeley, “testing practices, punitive teacher evaluations, and university admissions processes fuel our competitive self-interests.” In the world of scholarships and class ranks, the educational system can seem to steer kids into a “them-or-me” mind-set: for me to excel, they have to fail.

As we return to the classroom, with the new school year comes the chance to implement a new curriculum. This year, why not take a leap and try a customized curriculum? A customized curriculum puts you in control of your students’ success. You are the one who knows your organization’s unique core beliefs best. Our team works with you and listens to your needs in order to build your goal-oriented, customized curriculum.

In elementary school, the end of each school year was marked by a big all-grade field trip to which the entire grade looked forward all year. Whether we visited the zoo in kindergarten, a nearby historical village in second grade, or a ropes course in fifth grade, it seemed that the end of the school year was prime time for out-of-classroom excursions.

But what about flipping the script and hosting a field trip as the school year begins?

The three terms in the title of this blog post are all popular (and effective) strategies for classroom reading. They are also so similar, and so frequently confused, that you may not be entirely clear what the difference between them is. What are read-alouds, shared reading, and shared read-alouds?

Read-aloud versus shared reading

We’ll start with the first two concepts, which are the basis of the third: read-aloud and shared reading.

It’s no secret that parental engagement in student learning is a huge predictor of student success. Not only does an open line of communication help parents understand what their child is learning, but it also gives teachers access to information they need to better serve the child in question.

In a 2012 episode of popular television show MythBusters, host Adam Savage (quoting his collaborator Alex Jason) observed that “the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.” The quote went viral, and despite its humorous nature, it touches on a valuable educational concept: the importance of scientific writing.

Why is scientific writing important?

In the summer, many families pack their bags and hit the road, bound for some exotic site or tropical paradise. That wanderlust is something that teachers understand, although they know it by a slightly different name: field trips.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is crucial for our students’ success. STEM careers encompass a broad range of jobs in the physical, earth, and life sciences as well as computer science, mathematics, engineering, and health care. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in these disciplines will grow to more than 9 million between 2012 and 2022 (Stem 101: Intro to Tomorrow's Jobs, 2014).

Here’s a question for you: Do you use essential questions in your classroom?

Here’s an essential question for you: Why should you use essential questions in your classroom?

Today, June 6, is National Gardening Exercise Day, a perfect day to remember the benefits that gardens offer students. From physical exercise to fresh produce, gardens promote a healthy lifestyle— and, according to Dan Wyrick, K-8 Elementary Program Consultant and Director of Nature by Design, gardening provides “an opportunity to be outside and interact with nature.”

I was blessed to grow up in a house with shelves of books and weekly visits to the public library. For me, a lover of books, “summer reading” was a way of life rather than a chore. For many kids, however, the situation is different, and the “summer slide” is proof of the frequent lack of summer reading among students. There are many reasons why students don’t read over the summer.

The weather is nice. The class is antsy. The countdown has begun. The students are in summer mode.

Meanwhile, as the teacher, you’re panicking slightly at all the content left to cover. With mountains of subject matter still untouched, it might seem like there’s no alternative but lectures and worksheets. Although that may be a good way to “fit it in,” it’s also a good way to lose your students’ remaining focus.

With graduation season in full swing, students of all ages are pondering their futures, making plans of study, and imagining dream jobs. But what jobs are they imagining—especially young female students? We’ve been told girls are less likely than boys to pursue degrees and careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects.

Is this true? Well, partially.

Educational gains

Overview

As any parent or teacher can attest to, today’s students are members of the “digital generation” and spend much of their time involved in new forms of media enabled by technology, from social media sites to iPad games and mobile phone apps. Virtual reality (VR) technology presents exciting opportunities for teachers to capitalize on students’ interest in all things digital through the use of educational VR applications in the classroom.

Well-structured collaborative learning tasks are an effective way to increase student learning and motivation while establishing a classroom environment that encourages cooperation and values diversity.

Overview

The Pathways 2.0 curriculum emphasizes independent student learning.

“The more you read, the more things that you’ll know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” —Dr. Seuss

Pathways 2.0: Journey to Excellence through Literacy!

Provides instruction in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. This biblically based curriculum built on the Adventist worldview and the belief that Christ is the model teacher. Pathways 2.0 recognizes the responsibility of nurturing excellence and service to others. The lessons found in each unit provide rigorous academic quality aligned with standards of proficiency in literacy.

The possibilities for the use of faith-based reading in the classroom are nearly limitless!

How can you foster the enjoyment of reading?

Shared read-aloud is a major component of the Pathways 2.0* program and research has shown that it is an effective strategy for increasing early literacy skills. Before describing the benefits of shared read-alouds, it’s important to clarify some terms:

Innovation of new technologies is constantly moving forward. In the classroom, teachers have seen the shift from the use of videocassettes and DVDs to the use of online materials, such as YouTube videos, to bring concepts alive and heighten student interest. Now, the next innovation is here: VR—virtual reality. This technology takes the audiovisual experience to a whole new level.

What is project-based learning (PBL)? How can I incorporate PBL into my classroom? To answer the first question simply, PBL is the act of learning through identifying a real-world problem and developing its solution. Students show what they learn as they move through the project, not just at the end.

Did you drive or ride in a car today? Are you using a computer or tablet to read this blog? Have you eaten a piece of fruit today? Have you visited a doctor or dentist recently?

“Teacher, Teacher, What made that happen?”

At some point in their lives, most students want to become a teacher because it is one of the first career choices they are exposed to. Some students even view teaching as an easy job. Have you ever considered letting your students test out teaching as a career choice? This could be done at any grade level, with younger students likely needing a bit more guidance than your middle or high school students.

In my last blog I talked about my sister and brother attempting to keep milkshakes cool by putting them in a hot closet and having a fan blow on them.

I often tell my students that children are born scientists.  They come into the world wanting to find out how things work. Then, over the years, the educational system takes this natural curiosity away and replaces it with a curriculum that tells students what educational officials think the students should know.  The result is that students quit seeing science as something that is useful and see it as just another subject in school to get a good grade in. 

According to Stiggins and Chappuis (2012), there are four keys to assessment quality:  clear purpose, clear targets, sound design, and effective communication. 

Did you know that every third bite of food we eat is a result of pollinators?

It’s true! Bees, butterflies, birds, and other pollinators help grow our food, keep our flowers blooming, and make our lands healthy. For many reasons, including lack of habitat, pollinators are struggling to survive.

What is your learning style? Can you identify the preferred learning style of each of your students?

If you give it some thought, it is more than likely that every possible learning style preference is represented in your classroom. That can make it difficult to provide a successful learning environment for all of your students, but there is one method that will have all of your students covered.

“Working with Kendall Hunt Publishing to Customize Our Curriculum Has Exceeded Our Expectations!"

Many educators often experience frustration when trying to find the perfect curriculum for their needs.  When currently published curriculum offerings just don’t measure up to the standards that you have set for your classroom, custom publishing is a fantastic solution to get exactly what you need.

Get ‘EM OUT!

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) has become a major focus for education in the United States, and with good cause, given the decline in America’s world rank in these subject areas. Teaching STEM subjects can seem daunting if you don’t have a degree or certificate in one of these areas, but you don’t have to be a science major to provide solid STEM curriculum to your students.

As the weather gets colder and students spend more time cooped up indoors after heading home from school each day, there is no better time to stress the importance of reading at home. Encourage your students to spend some (or most) of that time reading. For some students, this will seem much more appealing than it will for others. However, you can motivate all students and help them enjoy reading outside the classroom with these strategies:

On March 23, 2015, President Barack Obama stated, “Science is more than a school subject, or the periodic table, or the properties of waves. It is an approach to the world, a critical way to understand and explore and engage with the world, and then have the capacity that world . . .” Our students’ success in the future will be dependent, not on what they know, but what they can do with what they know.

In the first year of my teaching career I learned the value of having students work together in groups. I have to admit that this was not my first choice. Initially I used groups in order to position the desks of my 39 students in a way that made student and teacher movement easier and increased student work space. The downside of the group arrangement was noise level and occasional chaos.